


See the Light

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [39]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 13:25:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10537401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: “Alright. We’ve already conquered a couple impossibilities. A royal wedding in one day? Should be a piece of cake, huh?"





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [czar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/czar/gifts).



> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/157958992617/post-game-noctyx-following-the-marry-me-fic-and) for an anonymous request.

“Do you remember, ten years ago today, you asked me a question?”

All of the breath gathered in Noctis’s chest like puffs of clouds. If he’d feared that time could ever abolish that infantile feeling of enchantment that passed through him every time Nyx smiled, well then he was as much a fool about time as he was a fool for this man. Smiling back was still contagious. Adoring that crooked, canine grin was still immediate. And he could still remember the moment in his memory as if only a day had passed. He let his hand fall to the brittle loop of grass around Nyx’s finger.

“Yeah,” Noctis said. “And I remember you giving me an answer to go with it.”

Nyx touched the matching loop that Noctis wore, still marveling at how, while all the rest of Noctis had aged, this pitiful blade of grass had not. And that, even within the Crystal and even impacted beneath the weight of all those kings and even after being burned back to life, this thin, halfway broken promise had still survived it all with Noctis. Nyx brought the king’s hand to his lips, kissing just above the makeshift engagement ring, and all of a sudden, Noctis was nineteen again, pressed deeply to his knight in the dark gardens of the Citadel, dancing with him to the moody party ballads whispering from within the palace.

“Once it was all over, right?” Nyx murmured.

Light billowed brighter than it ever had throughout the thrown open windows of the Citadel. Every curtain had been torn down and burned a week after the darkness proved it would never return. All of Lucis had wept and cheered as the King of Light himself ignited the fire. It had acted as a beacon for the Insomnian people to finally return home. Half a year later, their city was starting to shine again.

“Right,” Noctis agreed, threading his fingers through his, perfectly fitting between each digit. “I’m ready to start planning whenever you are.”

“Who said anything about planning?” Nyx gave him a wolfish grin. “We’ve waited long enough.”

“Today?” Noctis laughed, considering the idea as it danced along the steel-cut edge of Nyx’s eyes. “Alright. We’ve already conquered a couple impossibilities. A royal wedding in one day? Should be a piece of cake, huh?”

“Mm, speaking of cake…”

“He might actually cry. He’s been waiting to bake my wedding cake since he was eight.”

“Might start crying for different reasons once he realizes how last minute it is.”

“We’ll never know unless we get out of bed and tell him.”

Nyx growled in annoyance. One thing Noctis found infinitely entertaining since his resurrection was the sleep cycle role reversal between the two of them. The first night after Nyx had pressed a phoenix down to his chest and called him from the afterlife, when they could finally, _finally_ rest after so much time spent divided, Noctis had laid awake all night, staring out at the too bright stars while Nyx hugged him to his chest so tight and fell asleep in the sleek black locks of hair like he hadn’t slept in ten long years. The new paradigm consisted for every night since then: Noctis making up for lost time by drinking in every second of the world with wakeful eyes; Nyx slumbering peacefully, holding onto him in the night; too afraid to let him go, as if the dark might steal him away again, but too relieved to feel him in his arms again not to rest in that feeling.

“Come on, this was your idea, hero.”

Noctis tried to disentangle himself from the limbs adhered to his body, chuckling at the petulant moan that rumbled in his ear as Nyx dragged him back against his chest.

“I’m not the hero anymore, remember?” Nyx mumbled into his neck, kissing along exhausted routes and whispering sweetly, “My hero… My king… My love…”

“ _My_ hero,” Noctis countered, turning his face to press return kisses to the top of his head. “And you could be my _husband_ in a couple hours, if only you’d cooperate.”

“There an order in there, Your Majesty?”

The crafty cut of Nyx’s glance still made Noctis’s blood race as if it was the first time he’d ever been looked at so lustfully. It still made his brain fracture into hundreds of titillated shards that only Nyx could mold back together in those firm hands that had reached past his skin and taken ahold of his soul. Ten years ago, Noctis would have had no self-control – he barely had any now – and he would have twisted around, kissed Nyx full on the mouth, and trapped them both in this bed for as long as until someone came knocking. If Nyx hadn’t tantalized him with this idea of marriage, he would have done just that.

“Not an order,” Noctis replied, teasing his thumb along the crease of Nyx’s lips. “But some incentive. The sooner we finish the ceremony and the reception, the sooner we can get to the honeymoon.”

“You drive a _hard_ bargain,” Nyx hissed.

Noctis distracted him with a deep, lingering kiss, pressing a sinful promise behind it. It knocked Nyx senseless, softening his arms around him just enough for Noctis to slip out from beneath them and escape the bed.

“You’re in charge of the guest list,” Noctis said to his whine of despair. “I’ll wrangle the men of honor.”

It surprised a total of zero of his friends when he texted them the plans.

“Gimme 10mins,” Gladio’s reply said.

“You mean you’re not already married???” said Prompto.

“Throne room. Casual wear. Galahdian for the buffet, Lucian for dessert. Five hours, max.” Ignis was still all of their dreams come true in the shape of a mortal man.

Nyx informed him in a quick succession of buzzes that Iris would be decorating – no arguments – and it sounded like Aranea was flying in a whole bar’s worth of Niflheim liquor – not even a question that there would be _no arguments_. “Small and quiet” was not in the commodore’s vocabulary, but Nyx assured Noctis that Aranea promised not to blare the wedding march from her airship’s speakers as she flew into the royal air-strip. She was bringing Biggs, Wedge, and would pick up Libertus, Cid, Cindy, and Talcott. Noctis could practically see Nyx’s delight through the digital letters at having his best friend attend the event.

Noctis was just as delighted and a bit more than that when he met up with his friends in the lobby in front of the throne room. The ten minutes Gladio had requested were to give him time to fetch the three’s wedding gift to Noctis.

“A bit tricky to find them under all the rubble,” Prompto said, laughing airily.

“But worth the scrapes and bruises,” Gladio chuckled as he passed the box to Noctis. “Knew you were gonna need ‘em one day.”

“You both went without a proper engagement ring for so long. It was only right that you finally had your parents’ wedding rings,” Ignis said, smiling as proudly as if he were one of his parents himself.

The matching rings shone silvery-gold in the light, engraved in fine Lucian filigree. Smiling mementos of a love lost that was never found again. Noctis looked up at the faces that had stood by his side for nearly all his life. That had never given up on him, not even in ten years of eternal night when it would have been so much easier to lose hope than to hold onto it. That had been there to smile and sob and open their arms to him whenever he’d needed a light to come home to. Their smiles started to blur together in front of him now, and his voice was thick as his nails delicately grazed the rings.

“Thanks, you guys.”

“We owed you far more than thanks for saving us all.”

Ignis coughed to try and conceal the emotional strain of his own voice. It ended up being Gladio that forced them all to just let it out, laugh and cry, by herding them all together in a big bear hug.

“It wouldn’t really be a wedding if a best man didn’t cry, right?” Prompto bubbled.

Not long after that, the familiar roar of Aranea’s airship thundered over the Citadel. They went up to meet them, already finding that Nyx and Iris had preceded them. Nyx was already locked in a hug with Libertus, and Iris was trading friendly punches with Aranea as the commodore sauntered from the airship.

“Hey! About damn time, Prince Charmless,” Aranea barked at him as he approached while Biggs, Wedge, and Talcott hefted crates of (hopefully legal) booze from the cargo bay. “You should have been married _months_ ago.”

“I’ll say,” Cid grumbled as Cindy helped him hobble onto the tarmac. “You’re lucky I’m still alive to see this happen. Waited any longer and you bet I would have been haunting your scrawny, unmarried ass.”

“Remind me why you invited him?” Nyx asked Noctis, patting Libertus’s back as he parted from him.

Because Dad would have wanted him here, Noctis thought. Especially if he couldn’t be here himself. Regis would have wanted all of them there. Which is why Noctis thought it must have been an act of his father’s spirit that brought Cor out of the belly of the air-ship.

“Don’t look so surprised,” the marshal grunted. “You’re going to need someone to officiate this thing, aren’t you?”

“Well, isn’t this an honor,” Nyx said, insinuating himself at his rightful place by Noctis’s side. “The Immortal himself is getting us hitched.”

“Ulric,” Cor greeted him with a terse nod.

Age had not tamed Nyx’s ceaseless challenge of authority. Cor had become his new Commander Drautos well before Noctis had been pulled into the Crystal, and ten years of competitive daemon hunting had only exacerbated their rivalry. Unlike Drautos, Nyx had been secretly thrilled to find that Cor wasn’t so much of a brick wall to his scathing taunts as he was a canon across enemy lines that fired right back. Nyx’s devilish smirk which followed Cor’s back as he marched on spoke to his genuine happiness at having him officiate.

“If everyone’s in attendance…” Ignis intoned.

“Yeah! Let’s get a move on!” Aranea barked, effectively commanding everyone to hustle back into the Citadel as if she were the true King.

Noctis met Nyx outside the throne room. Peering inside, he was stunned by Iris’s ingenuity for decorating in such a short amount of time. Black Lucian banners, bundles of sylleblossoms, and violet streamers of Galahdian design were draped across the room, the symbols for the royal family and the Kingsglaive hanging above the throne itself. Ignis had tables set up along each side of the room full of steaming food that looked like they’d been prepared days in advance rather than in a handful of hours.

Their friends lined each side of the stairs leading to the dais, with Cor waiting at the top, looking like the most sinned holy man in all of Eos. Between them all, Noctis could see the ghosts that whispered in with the light. He could see Luna’s smile and his father’s carefully contained sobs of pride. Could even imagine Luna consoling his happiness with a dutiful pat on the back. Noctis wondered if Nyx saw ghosts, too. He wondered if he could see Crowe standing next to Libertus, pumping her fists and cheering like this was the edge of Altissia’s Arena rather than a marriage procession. He wondered if he saw his sister.

“Ready?” Noctis asked.

Nyx looked down at him and ten years of sleepless nights sloughed out of his eyes. The trauma of his homeland’s collapse, the grief over his lost family, the self-loathing of losing Regis, and then losing Noctis, and all the feelings of uselessness for failing to be their protector all melted away in a single, bright moment of utter contentment.

“I was ready the second I said yes.”

He presented his arm for Noctis to loop his through, a response that motored automatic through the king. Although in reality, the time he’d spent with him was short, it felt like so much longer. Nyx had always been in his life, a sturdy shadow always standing watch at night. One dark to keep the rest away. He never had to be afraid of the night because Nyx wasn’t. Nyx wasn’t afraid of anything. Nyx wasn’t afraid to reach through death with something as trivial and taken for granted for as a phoenix down, and pull Noctis back into his arms.

Walking arm-in-arm up to Cor already had half of the party in tears. When Cor asked if they had vows to exchange and Nyx said, “I’m pretty sure we made our vows ten years ago,” the rest of the party started crying.

When asked to exchange rings, Nyx was stunned to be presented with the ornate silver band. The traditions of marriage had lessened in importance to him, he told Noctis once. His mother had thrown her wedding ring in the river after his dad split, letting it wash out to sea with the rest of the tears she had left to spare the man. It had been as worthless as the broken promise it represented.

But, Noctis saw in the shimmer of his eyes that he quickly blinked away that these rings meant more than that. These rings were stronger, had survived the fall of Insomnia and the deaths of the monarchs who wore them. They’d survived, just as the two of them had. Against the astral laws themselves, they had defied prophecy and spited death to walk the lives they deserved. The rings fit as if they had always belonged on each of their fingers. As if they’d always been there, just as they had been for each other.

In a tight voice, Cor asked, “Will you two swear to love each other in the light when it shines brightest, as well as in the darkest nights that might extinguish it?”

They’d always loved each other in the dark.

“Yeah,” Nyx said. “Love you, little king.”

“I love you. Always.”

They were _sure_ that the breath Cor took was covering up a _sniffle_ , but he hastily ordered them to “just kiss” before either of them could notice for sure. It was the only order Nyx Ulric would ever take without insubordination. They kissed with the tender fire of every kiss they’d ever given each other before, and with the promise of so many more to come.


End file.
